Free Republic

The Justice Department is refusing to reveal details of the process that led up to former FBI Director Robert Mueller being granted an ethics waiver to serve as special counsel investigating the Trump campaign's alleged collusion with Russia during the 2016 presidential election. In response to a POLITICO Freedom of Information Act request, the agency released a one-sentence memo Friday confirming that Mueller was granted a conflict-of-interest waiver in order to assume the politically-sensitive post. The waiver is believed to relate to Mueller's work in recent years as a partner at the WilmerHale law firm, which also represented former Trump...

Altell says she hopes her voice will provide an outlet to help Palestinians who feel they are often silenced in the American political climate. “We will gain the right for everyone to go back and live on the lands of what was and will always be ours,” she said. “Jerusalem is forever ours, and only ours.” Saleh Aqleh, a junior civil engineering major, said he sees the recent declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel as an opportunity for others to witness, “for the 100th time the injustices the Palestinian people face.” He believes that Trump was in “no...

President Donald Trump wants to send man back to the moon — and on to Mars. Trump signed a policy directive Monday instructing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to “refocus America’s space program on human exploration and discovery.” The move, Trump said, “marks an important step in returning American astronauts to the moon for the first time since 1972 for long-time exploration.” “This time we will not only plant our flag and leave our footprint,” he said, “we will establish a foundation for an eventual mission to Mars, and perhaps someday, to many worlds beyond.” …

Yet, there’s one thing even his most vociferous enemies – and that is a historically high volume of human beings – cannot continue to deny, and it’s this: Donald Trump delivers on his promises. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5167331/PIERS-MORGAN-Trump-keeps-promises-Lib-media-hate-it.html#ixzz510RMZGr9 Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Judge Amy Berman Jackson has come down on the side of the free speech totalitarians, and upheld the Geller Ban. The Washington Post doesn’t explain it in the article below, but the reason why did the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority rejected these ads was because of the Geller Ban. It’s implied in this paragraph: “But in a decision issued on Friday, Judge Amy Berman Jackson took a different stance. She said that Metro’s policies banning religious and ‘issues-oriented’ ads — borne out of a desire to prevent inflammatory ads that could incite violence — was reasonable and enforced with...

A suspected terrorist detonated a potentially deadly “improvised low-tech explosive device” inside a New York City subway passageway during Monday morning rush hour, injuring himself and three other people and causing chaos at one of the city’s key traffic hubs. The device went off in the 42nd Street passageway between 7th and 8th avenues, and the suspect, later identified as Akayed Ullah, 27, was taken into custody, NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill said. The incident happened at about 7:20 a.m. in the busy underground tunnel near both the Times Square subway station and the Port Authority Bus Terminal. None of the...

Video at link (1:16) ~ Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said the women who accused President Donald Trump of sexual misconduct “should be heard.” Haley said, “I am incredibly proud of the women who have come forward. I’m proud of their strength. I’m proud of their courage. And I think that the idea that this is happening, I think it will start to bring a conscience to the situation, not just in politics, but in, you know, we’ve seen in Hollywood and in every industry. And I think the time has...

Authorities apprehended a terrorist suspect Monday after he orchestrated an explosion in downtown Manhattan, but CNN and MSNBC decided to pivot from the breaking news to cover a much more pressing story: President Donald Trump’s TV habits and love of Diet Coke. Initial reports indicate that the explosion is a probable terror attack, but as details of the attack were still being fleshed out, both CNN and MSNBC spent a significant amount of time covering a New York Times story about a day in the life of POTUS. CNN talked to Michael D’Antonio, a CNN contributor, about Trump’s TV-watching habits...

There is something about the holidays that conjures a temporary time machine. It has the capability to transport us back in holiday time. Trips down the holiday memory lane are not always pleasant for everyone. For example, there is an evil demon whose sole purpose is to ruin happy occasion. If you doubt this, consider all the holidays when we lost loved ones. That blasted demon is so mean. But then, there is no customer service department in demon land. When you think about it, customer service on the human plane is lame and useless as well. Some rich kids...

Christmas in Australia is a time of presents, beach swims and of course, the never ending spread of food. But not everyone wants a slice of ham. Australia is now the third-fastest growing vegan market in the world, according to Euromonitor International. FEMAIL has rounded up the best food options that people can bring to the table to satisfy the vegans in their life.

Jack Morris and Alan Trammell were both elected to the Baseball Hall Of Fame today, as announced on the MLB Network. The two longtime Tigers greats were voted in via the HOF’s Modern Baseball Era Committee, who weighed the cases of Morris, Trammell and eight others who weren’t originally selected in the traditional writers’ vote. (MLB.com’s Barry M. Bloom has the details on the Modern Era Committee’s composition and process.) Both Morris and Trammell went the full 15 years on the Baseball Writers’ Association Of America ballot without getting the necessary 75% of the vote necessary for election. Still, both...

Welcome to the first of our December celebrations of the big hits from the Christmas songbook. We start with one of the most beloved seasonal numbers, which celebrates its 75th birthday this holiday season: In December 1942, the Number One hit on the Billboard chart was the very first record of this song by Bing Crosby. This special Song of the Week audio edition includes rare material from the Steyn archive and a special live performance of "White Christmas". Mark visits the home of Mary Ellin Barrett, daughter of the man who gave us "God Bless America", "Blue Skies", "Easter...

Editor's Note: This article was originally published in June 2012 and has been updated with the most recent information. After the construction of the Bay Bridge in 1933, San Francisco began considering duplicating the bridge and running a second one further south across the bay. Enter Frank Lloyd Wright, a little-known architect whose idea and design for a second Bay Bridge never came to fruition. The noted architect hated the idea of a second steel structure similar to the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge. Partnering with engineer Jaroslav J. Polivka, Wright proposed a concrete "Butterfly Bridge,” spanning from Army Street (now...

The Doug Jones for Senate Committee thought that circulating a racially charged flyer was a good way to win the black vote in Alabama in the upcoming special election against Judge Roy Moore. The move backfired. The flyer has been making the rounds on social media. It shows a young black man with a skeptical look on his face. “Think if a black man went after high school girls anyone would try to make him a senator?” it reads. The answer to the question is ‘maybe,’ but that’s not the point. Multiple people who got the flyer posted photos of...

EDITOR: George Will’s Thursday column (“GOP tax wager is worth the gamble”) proves that a smart guy can’t justify the tax reform bill even if he discounts persuasive evidence and cites the promises of Donald Trump. Money is hard to understand, and being ridiculously rich obviously doesn’t improve understanding. If someone makes $100 million in one year and the government takes 90 percent in taxes, they still have enough to live well for at least one lifetime — and probably enough for many successive generations. But they are frightened about losing the other $90 million even though some of their...

Ebony Williams, the Fox & Friends Weekend co-host is an obnoxious pro-abortion liberal attorney and needs to be dumped. She is rude to guests and talks over her co-hosts. She's worse than Whoraldo! For an example, watch her debate with Ben Shapiro to see where she debated that a woman's personal preferences took priority over the baby's right to live.

A paedophile was caught when he left his phone on a busA paedophile with a “disturbing” criminal record tried to blame someone else when police found nearly 1,000 images of child abuse on his phone. Craig Horsfield, 32, from Cardiff, had multiple convictions for making and possessing indecent images of children as well as failing to comply with sex offender notification requirements. Sentencing at Cardiff Crown Court, Judge Jeremy Jenkins told the defendant: “You have a long and disturbing history.” The court heard an employee of Cardiff Bus found Horsfield’s phone on April 6. David Pugh, prosecuting, said he found...

Last Wednesday marked the 28th anniversary of the "Montreal Massacre", when fourteen female students at the École Polytechnique were murdered by a man known to posterity as "Marc Lépine". Much followed from that terrible slaughter, including various "gun control" measures - and the official annual commemorations that, a quarter-century on, are attended by as many eminences as Remembrance Day or Dominion Day. A decade or so back, I heard the Quebec broadcaster Marie-France Bazzo remark how strange it was that, after all these years, nobody had made a work of art about what happened that day. And shortly thereafter someone...

When a UNESCO World Heritage Site comes to mind, perhaps it has the natural splendor of the Great Barrier Reef or the imposing mastery of the Pyramids of Giza. Now one may look no further than the humble pizza for world heritage status. No, not the frozen kind, the old-school kind baked in a wood-fired oven. On Wednesday Pizzaiuolo, the art of Neopolitan pizza-making, was added to UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. UNESCO says the designation is meant to safeguard and raise awareness about forms of cultural heritage — often passed down from generation to...

(recipes at link) Pastry is a name given to a large variety baked goods which are made with ingredients such as flour, sugar, milk, butter, shortening, baking powder and eggs. Pastry dough is rolled out thinly and then used as a base for different baked products. A few of the more common bakery items include pies, tarts, quiches and pasties. Culinary historians often consider French pastry chef Antonin Careme (1784 – 1833) to have been the original great master of pastry making in modern times...